


Fevered Dreams

by Angel Ascending (angel_in_ink)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Closure, Fantasy Malaria, Fever Dreams, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Seizures, does this count as sickfic?, many cups of tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-18
Updated: 2018-10-18
Packaged: 2019-08-04 04:45:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16340078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel_in_ink/pseuds/Angel%20Ascending
Summary: Turned out Beau had been sicker than anyone, including herself, had realized.





	Fevered Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Listen, you can't have Beau come down with possible fantasy malaria and then expect me *not* to write about her fever dreams and the rest of the group taking care of her. You just can't. Not even two days with a migraine was able to stop me.

Beau hated the jungle like she had hated nothing else in her life. It was entirely too full of snakes, and people that were also snakes, and people that were also snakes and had snakes for arms for fucks sake, but it was just so damn _hot._ She was as soaked as if she had been rained on, except she liked being rained on, and rain didn’t sting her eyes and make her itch. She swiped at her eyes again and panted, the air around her nearly solid with heat and moisture. Ahead of her was the rest of the group, seemingly ignorant of her discomfort and unaffected by the weather.

Beau hurried to catch up and fell hard instead, the jungle floor a slippery mix of half rotted vegetation. She swore as she tried to get up, her joints aching from the strain. There were footsteps then, Caleb’s worn boots coming into view before one bandaged hand grabbed her roughly and yanked her to her feet.

“Ow! Caleb, the fuck?!” Beau tried to yank her arm away but Caleb held her firm, his face a storm of anger and contempt.

“Try to keep up, Beauregard.” Caleb spat her full name at her as if it were a curse. “If you cannot hold your own, we will leave you behind.”

Frumpkin hooted loudly in seeming agreement from her shoulder and pecked her on the cheek, hard, and then flew after Caleb as he dropped Beau’s arm and walked away.

Beau could only stare at them in shock for a long moment, one hand clasped to her bleeding cheek. “Caleb? Frumpkin? What the hell is wrong with you?”

********

Caleb sat by Beau’s side, watching over her and listening to her fevered mutterings. He had been the first to notice that she had no longer been behind the rest of the group as they had hiked through the jungle, and when he had looked through Frumpkin’s eyes he had seen her collapsed on the ground, sweaty and ashen. Yasha had been the one to carry her until they had found a safe place to make camp, a fact that would have probably delighted Beau if she had been in any state to enjoy it.

“I am right here, Beau,” Caleb said softly. “And Frumpkin is here too.”

Frumpkin, unprompted, gave a soft, squeaky hoot and rubbed his feathered head against Beau’s hand.

“You are going to be fine,” Caleb said. “Jester and Caduceus are doing everything they can to make you well again.”

What Caleb didn’t say was that magic didn’t seem to be working on whatever it was that had stricken the monk, and even Caduceus’s strongest teas hadn’t done much to keep her fever down. Unless another solution presented itself, all they could do now was wait.

“You are going to be fine,” Caleb said again, and wished that the words didn’t sound like a lie.

************

“Guys! Slow down!” It was too hot to be moving so fast, much too hot, and it was such a struggle to keep up. She was running through the jungle as fast as she could, and still all she could make out of her friends was the distant fire of Caleb’s hair, the faint blue smudge of Jester’s skin. Soon she couldn’t even make out that, too busy fighting the sudden undergrowth that had obscured the path, beating them back with her staff, pausing occasionally to swat at the clouds of whining insects that thought she was a damn three course meal with dessert for afters.

The unruly vegetation slowly gave way to grapevines that curled over their trellises, orderly in their set rows, the jungle heat fading somewhat to the normal warmth of a  Kamordahian summer. Red-purple grapes hung heavily from their vines, some falling to the ground only to be trod upon by Beau as she ran, the scent of them a close cousin to the scent of the wine they would never become.

Beau’s friends were gone of course. She had fallen behind, she hadn’t been able to keep up. But there was someone else ahead of her, someone else running, long dark hair streaming behind her. Someone Beau hadn’t seen in a long time.

“Mom?”

The woman kept running with no indication that she had heard Beau at all. Beau ran after her, faster now that she didn’t have to fight through vines or swat at insects. Her joints screamed in pain but still she pushed herself until she could grab the woman by the shoulder and spin her around. “Mom!”

Beau’s mother yanked herself out of her daughter’s grasp and stumbled back a few paces. She looked at Beau the same way she had always looked at her, at her father, with blue eyes filled with unhappiness, with her mouth set in a thin line that could have been anger or sorrow or disappointment. When Beau had read tales about seals and swans who could turn into women, who had been trapped into marriage and denied their freedom by husbands who had stolen their animal skins, she had always pictured those women looking like her mother, had known herself to be the hidden skin that had kept her bound to her father.

“Mom?” Beau’s voice sounded like a child’s voice to her ears, but she couldn’t help it. “Mommy?”

Her mother looked at her with those eyes, those cold and distant eyes, just as she had the day her father had arranged for Beau’s kidnapping. Then she turned into an owl and flew away, leaving a single brown feather on the path.

Beau looked up into the sky, searching for her mother, but all she saw were clouds appearing out of nowhere to block the sun. A moment later the first snowflakes began to fall.

***********

“Shhhh,” Nott said softly, brushing a lock of sweat soaked hair away from Beau’s face. “Shhh, it’s alright, Beau.”

Beau had never talked about her mother. She had told Nott about her father, but her mother had never come up in conversation. The way Beau called out for her made it clear, at least to Nott, that she was gone in some way. Nott wondered if she had died maybe, or had left when Beau was young.

“I’m not your mother,” Nott said, still running one hand through Beau’s hair, careful of her claws. “But I’m here. I’m here.”

**************

Beau shivered as she waded through the calf high snow, as snowflakes fell and melted on her skin. The frozen grapes on their vines almost looked beautiful, like the ornaments used to decorate for midwinter, but Beau was in no state to appreciate them. She didn’t remember the vineyards being this large, surely she should have made it to the house by now?

As soon as she thought it, the house seemed to appear in front of her, and Beau sighed in relief even as her teeth chattered. Finally. She could change into warmer clothes, get something hot to drink, then crawl under her bedcovers and hibernate like a bear until winter ended, or until she felt better, whichever came first. She was just so _cold_ and her joints ached like someone had been hitting them with a hammer. She’d feel better once she was in the house, she was sure of it.

The doorknob was cold under her frozen fingers, and refused to turn. Beau cursed and searched for her key, but she wasn’t surprised when she didn’t find it, she was always losing the cursed thing. Fine. Everything was going to be hard today it seemed. Beau walked around to the side of the house and leapt up into the oak tree that was her usual access to and from her bedroom window when she wanted to avoid her father, which was always. At least, she _tried_ to leap into the tree, but her frozen, aching limbs refused to propel her high enough for her to grab the bottom branch.

“Fine. That’s just fucking fine,” Beau muttered after the fifth time she landed on her ass in the snow. She’d just knock and deal with her father’s displeasure. It wasn’t like she wasn’t used to it. She was nearly immune to his looks of disappointment anyway, and it was a small price to pay for getting inside where it was warm. She forced her way through the now knee high snow and knocked on the door, wincing as her frozen knuckles hit the wood. After a moment there was the sound of footsteps, and Beau raised her head as the door opened, ready to look her father in the eye.

It wasn’t her father that answered the door.

Sometimes, when Beau looked into the dodecahedron that helped them alter fate, she’d glimpse other versions of herself, future reflections, past echoes. The woman who opened the door looked like one of those possibilities. Her face was the same, but her hair was longer, and she didn’t have the muscles that Beau had acquired through hard work, didn’t have calluses on her hands. The dress she was wearing would have never survived a bar fight, or a trek through the swamp.

“Hello?” The woman sounded annoyed and puzzled, and her voice was Beau’s voice and it wasn’t, all at the same time.

Beau tried to speak, but she couldn’t open her mouth, couldn’t push past the her that was not her to get at the warmth waiting inside the house. All she could do was stare and shiver harder.

“Who _are_ you?” The woman asked with a sneer, but Beau still couldn’t answer, couldn’t move, could only shake with cold.

“You don’t belong here,” the woman said moments before she slammed the door in Beau’s face. Only then could Beau move, only then could she stumble off the steps, could turn her back on the place that had once been her home and never would be again. Head lowered, arms wrapped around herself, she walked away.

***********

Fjord laid a hand on Beau’s forehead which was damp and felt nearly as hot as the jungle surrounding them. Caleb had cast his protective magic hours ago to try and help, since the space inside the spell was always warm and dry, and it had meant a break from the heat and the humidity and the constant hum of insects. Everyone else was comfortable except for Beau, who was drenched in sweat even as she shivered as if she were freezing.

“Can’t you do something?” Fjord asked Caduceus, who was sitting nearby, an empty teacup in his hands. The firbolg had been pouring tea down Beau’s throat for hours, for all the good it had been doing. Still, Caduceus had been surprising Fjord ever since they had met with the things he could do. Any second now the cleric would stop staring into the distance and say something that would fix everything.

“I’ve _been_ doing something,” Caduceus said softly, sadly, and Fjord felt hope wither in his chest like a flower without water. “The magic needed to heal her must be greater than anything Jester or I possess, and the tea I usually use to break fevers just isn’t working.” He shook his head. “There might be something among the local plants that could help, but I know nothing about the wildlife here, it’s not at all similar to what I’m used to.”

“Can’t you just, you know, _ask_ the plants what they’re good for?” Fjord asked. “I mean, you talk to plants all the time. I’ve seen you do it.”

“I can ask, sure, but they can’t answer. Not in any voice I can hear. I’m not a druid. Right now all we can do is make sure she’s comfortable, and wait.”

“That’s not—“ _That’s not good enough_ , is what Fjord was going to say, but then Beau made some sort of sound, and her eyes opened for the first time in hours. She slowly sat up and looked at him, eyes slightly unfocused.

“Beau? Hey, you back with us? Gave us quite a scare.” Fjord kept his tone light, like they hadn’t all been worried sick. This had to be a good thing, right? Beau was awake and mostly upright, that was something.

Beau’s face twisted into a sneer. “Who _are_ you?”

Fjord flinched from the words as if he had been physically struck by them, biting back a curse. It had been Beau speaking, but it had sounded like the voice she had used when she had been pretending to be Traci, down by the docks in Nicodranas. Back then it had been astonishing and funny to hear her slip into that voice, that persona so well. Now though…

“Beau—“ His friend’s name caught in his throat and he swallowed hard and tried again, putting his hands lightly on her shoulders and looking into her eyes. “Beau, it’s me. It’s Fjord. I’m here.”

“You shouldn’t be here,” Beau said in Traci’s voice before her eyes rolled back all the way to the whites and Fjord quickly adjusted his grip to keep her from hurting herself as she shook violently for what had to have only been maybe half a minute but felt like an age before she sagged bonelessly in Fjord’s hands.

“Beau?”

No response, just the sound of her breathing much too fast as Fjord gently laid her back down.

“Fix her.” Fjord’s voice was a low and dangerous rumble in his chest. He was not normally the type of man to let his anger get the better of him, but he felt helpless and scared and oh gods what if those had just been Beau’s last words to him? “ **Fix her**!”

Caduceus just stared back at him, expression somber, eyes full of infinite patience and infinite sympathy.

*********

Beau kept her head down, eyes straining to see the cart tracks running through the faint dusting of snow that covered the ground. It felt like she had been walking for days, but she couldn’t give up, couldn’t stop or rest. The Iron Shepherds had taken her friends, and she had to find them before the worst happened to them. They had been stolen in the night, all except her, and for once she was glad that she had been seen as not worth enough to bother with, for once she had been glad to have been left behind. She would find the Iron Shepherds and she would free her friends and—

Someone was crying.

Beau kept her head down, eyes straining to see the footsteps outlined in the few inches of snow that covered the ground. It felt like she had been walking for days, but she couldn’t give up, couldn’t stop or rest. She had to find the person who had left those footprints. It was very important. Beau couldn’t remember why it was important, just knew that it was. She would find whoever made those footprints and—

Thunder rumbled in the distance.

Beau kept her head down, eyes straining to see the black and gray and white feathers that were quickly being covered up by the snow that had been falling steadily from the sky. It felt like she had been walking for days, but she couldn’t give up, couldn’t stop or rest. If she found the creature who shed those feathers, she would get a wish. She would get a wish and she would wish for—

Lightning flashed.

Beau stood by the side of the road, staring at a coat hanging from a wooden stick, the brightness of it nearly blinding against the landscape of hills and snow covered trees. She blinked in confusion, then spun around as she heard a footstep crunch in the snow behind her.

Yasha’s eyes were pools of darkness, her wings outstretched, shedding feathers as Beau watched, like leaves falling from a tree in autumn. She raised hands that were covered with blood and dirt, as if she had been clawing at the ground. Her face was twisted in anger, the tears that trailed down her cheeks as black as blood in moonlight.

Beau had never been frightened of Yasha a day in her life. Intimidated, sure. Turned on, most definitely. Now though, now she screamed, fear paralyzing her as Yasha advanced, as her hands shot out and grabbed Beau’s shoulders, hard enough to bruise, hard enough to make her bleed.

“ **This is your fault**!” Yasha’s voice was an oncoming storm, a tornado promising death and destruction. “ **It’s your fault he’s in the ground!** ”

Beau screamed and kept on screaming as a lavender hand erupted from the dirt beneath her feet and grabbed her ankle, trying to pull her down, trying to haul himself up.

**********

Yasha watched as Beau moaned and twitched, no doubt caught in terrible dreams. It made Yasha’s heart ache to see it, but then her heart hadn’t stopped hurting since she had seen Beau crumpled in a heap on the path, since she had gathered the monk up into her arms. She had wanted to hope that Beau had been exaggerating her symptoms just for the chance to get Yasha to carry her, that any second her eyes would open and she would smile in triumph. Yasha had known better in her heart of hearts though, especially when she had felt just how hot Beau had been.

Beau made a distressed sort of sound and Yasha laid one hand on Beau’s too warm cheek. In that moment she was reminded painfully of Molly, who had sometimes suffered from bad dreams and had made similar noises when he had slept. Maybe she should sing to Beau, like she had used to do for Molly.

“I’m right here,” Yasha said softly, trying to reassure her. “Everything is going to be—“

And that’s when Beau sat bolt upright, eyes wide, and shrieked like Yasha was the most terrifying thing Beau had ever seen.

“Beau?” Yasha was dimly aware that everyone was running over to see what was wrong, everyone but Caduceus, who had been talking with Jamedi a few minutes ago and had been busy grinding up flowers and roots since then. She put her hands on Beau’s shoulders and tried to keep her voice calm. “Beau, it’s just me, it’s just Yasha. Whatever you’re seeing, it’s not real.”

The scream continued for another agonizing moment before it stopped suddenly and was replaced with a noise that was far worse than the screaming had been, a rattling, choking sort of sound.

“Lay her down!” Yasha heard Jester saying, and she did what the cleric told her to do, her thoughts frantic.

_Stormlord, hear me call to you, for my need is desperate. Please—please I do not want to lose anyone else._

_**********_

Beau sank into the earth as easily as if it had been swamp mud, and she choked on a mouthful of grit while above her Yasha smiled grimly as she watched Beau struggle.

“Aren’t you tired of fighting, Beau?” Yasha’s words stung Beau’s skin like hail. “You should just close your eyes and let it happen. You’ve always wanted a place to belong to, haven’t you? Well you _belong_ in the ground. It’s what you deserve.”

“Fuck you,” Beau said, or at least tried to say before she choked on more grave dirt. She couldn’t breathe at all now, and her struggles were getting weaker, her vision going gray and shadowy around the edges.

“He died because of you,” Beau heard Yasha say, her voice as distant as the storm clouds in the sky. It could be her own voice, echoing the thoughts that she often had when she was awake on watch, when the guilt twisting in her gut wouldn’t let her sleep. Gods, she doesn’t want that accusation to be the last thing she heard, the last thought in her head.

With what little remained of her strength and with her vision almost completely gone dark, Beau managed to drag one arm free from the ground and thrust it upwards like a drowning sailor’s last grasp at a rope. She expected to grab Yasha’s leg and use it to haul herself up, like the corpse below her (she refused to think of it as Molly, even in her possibly last moments) was trying to do.

Beau didn’t expect her hand to be grabbed, for her to be pulled from the earth as easily as if it were air. She didn’t expect to be able to breathe again, didn’t expect to stumble and fall, gasping, not in snow, but in green grass and purple flowers, didn’t expect the sun, or the smile that was even brighter than the sun and shone down on her just the same.

“Hello, unpleasant one. Did you miss me?”

****************

Jester laid her forehead on Beau’s chest and cried quietly as she listened to Beau breathe, listened to her heart beat. Neither was steady or strong, but it meant Beau was alive, that Jester’s magic had given Beau a bit more time. Time enough for a miracle maybe. It would have to be a miracle. Between battling the snake people to get to the temple, then fighting snake people _in_ the temple, then helping Caduceus heal everyone, she was completely tapped of all but her most basic of magics and she knew Caduceus was as well. If Beau died before one of them could sleep and regain their energy, neither of the clerics would be able to cast the spell that could bring Beau back to life. And if that happened…. if that happened, with no other clerics around and the nearest port city days away, if anything happened to delay them, if they couldn’t find a skilled cleric in time….

“Beau,” Jester whispered. “I have something very important to tell you, so you have to listen to me, okay?”

“Molly?” The name was barely a whisper, so faint that Jester could almost make herself believe she had imagined it. “It can’t be you.”

“I’m Jester, Beau. It’s me. I’m here. I’m here and you have to listen to me, okay? Are you listening? This is very important.” Jester took a deep breath because otherwise she would start crying again. “You can’t die, okay? It’s forbidden. I forbid it.”

************

“Molly?” Beau looked up at a face she hadn’t seen in months, and he was just the way she had remembered him, scars and tattoos and all, jewelry shining in his horns. “It can’t be you.”

“I assure you, I am still very much me,” Molly said with a grin and an outstretched hand. “Need some help there?”

Beau wanted to say no, that she was fine, but found herself taking the offered hand anyway. It felt warm in hers, solid and real. A moment later and she was on her feet, staring at his chest, searching for some evidence of the wound that had killed him amongst all his other scars, but there wasn’t any.

“You’re shaking,” Molly said as he took his coat off and held it out to her. “Put this on. You’ll feel better.”

Beau stared at the coat and remembered the last time she had seen it, hanging from a impromptu grave marker. “I’m dreaming,” she realized. “I’m dreaming and you’re dead.” She touched the coat, silk catching on the calluses on her fingertips. “This feels real though. _You_ feel real.”

“Yes I’m dead and yes I’m real,” Molly said. “I’d say yes you’re dreaming, but it’s a little more complicated than that.” He motioned with the hand holding the coat. “Go on, take it.”

Beau drew her hand back. “Complicated how? And where are we?”

Molly sighed and withdrew his hand, draping the coat over one shoulder. “Where we are is sort of part of the complicated. What’s the last thing you remember? Really remember?”

Beau closed her eyes and thought hard. “We had just escaped from a temple after fighting a bunch of fucked up snake people. We were running, I think, and I was feeling like shit, but I’d been feeling like shit since I had woken up that morning. Caduceus had tried healing me but nothing happened, so I guess it was just the heat. It was really hard to breathe, I remember that, the air felt so _thick._ And we were running and I couldn’t keep up and then— then things got weird.”

Beau opened her eyes and Molly was looking at her with an expression of sympathy. “That was when you passed out. It wasn’t just the heat, Beau. You’re sick and— not doing so great right now.“

“Fuck.” Beau felt her eyes fill with tears and she clenched her fists and hung her head, refusing to let them fall.

“Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.” Beau heard Molly step forward as he draped his coat around her shoulders. “You’re a little closer to dead than you are to alive, at the moment.”

“Fuck,” Beau said again, looking up at Molly. “So that’s just _it_ then? I’m going to die alone in the jungle?”

“You’re not alone.” Molly gestured, and the space below them went as clear as glass. Beau could see herself laying on the ground, the others all crowded around her unconscious body, Caduceus holding a cup of tea to her lips.

“They’re really there,” Beau whispered. Some part of her, the part of her that had learned time and time again that everyone would leave her, refused to believe it, but there they were.

“Of course they are. Hells, they’ve been doing nothing but try to keep you with them, all this time.”

Beau looked at her friends, at the hope and despair warring in their faces. “I don’t want to leave them, Molly.”

“They don’t want you to leave them either.”

***********

Caduceus stared down at the teacup in his hands as if it were an oracle well and if he looked into the tea long enough it would tell him how all this was going to end. The only thing the tea revealed was his own face, his expression showing none of the worry or doubt he felt. Later he might go off somewhere private and let out all the feelings he’d been bottling up, but not now. Right now everyone needed him to be The Cleric. He could do that for them.

It had been Jamedi who had given him the little purple and blue flowers and the bark of a certain type of tree. He had been an adventurer for a long time, he had said, and he learned certain things out of necessity, because there wasn’t always a cleric around, because certain things were sometimes resistant to healing magic. And Caduceus had taken the plants from Jamedi with hands that had not shaken, and thanked him in a calm and quiet voice, and Jamedi had walked back to his tent and Caduceus had not called upon his sacred flame to cremate the corpse of a man who refused to lie still. He had made tea instead, because that is what he had to do. Later there might be other tasks, a grave to dig, a body to bury, people to comfort. He wondered what flowers would grow from Beau if they planted her here. Would they be tropical like the jungle around them, or something from her home maybe?

Caduceus heard Jester casting a familiar spell again, her voice trembling with tears. The spell she was casting was like trying to patch a worn coat that also happened to be on fire. Eventually there would be nothing left to try and fix. A body could only take so much. A soul could only take so much.

Caduceus walked over to where Beau lay and knelt down beside her. He could feel everyone looking at him, their hope heavy on his shoulders, but he only had eyes for Beau.

“She’s not shaking anymore,” Fjord said quietly. “That’s good, right?”

Caduceus didn’t answer him. Sometimes people didn’t need to hear the truth, and this was one of those times. Caduceus was no stranger to the sick, the dying, and the dead, and Beau had a stillness about her like she was already in the grave. If she lasted another hour it would be a miracle.

Caduceus looked down at the tea in his hands again. If he did nothing, Beau would die. If he trusted Jamedi and gave Beau the tea, she might still die, either from malice on Jamedi’s part or from simply being too late to help her. For all he knew, the tea might kill Beau in such a way that she could come back as something else, something wrong. He was prepared for that eventuality, for doing what he had to do to make her lay easy in her grave. He had to be, because in the end there was really no choice at all, whether to give Beau the tea or not. If there was a chance she could be saved, he had to try. If that meant he would owe a dead man a debt, well, that’s what it meant, even if the idea shook him to the core.

Caduceus propped Beau up with one large hand, feeling the heat radiating off of her in waves.

“Hi Miss Beau,” Caduceus said quietly, as if she were just asleep and he didn’t want to wake her. “It’s me again. Time for more tea, all right? I hope it tastes okay, I haven’t tried it myself.”

Beau had once asked Caduceus if he had ever met a ghost that didn’t need punching, and Caduceus had said yes, there had been one. The question now was if there was one undead man he could trust.

********

“My coat looks good on you.”

Beau blinked and tore her eyes away from the scene of herself and her friends. “What?”

“You should have taken it, after I died. I wanted you to have it. Figured it’d be a reminder to loosen up a little, enjoy yourself.” Molly flashed her a smile. “Though maybe you didn’t need my coat to remind you of that. Watching you and Keg flirt your way through the Iron Shepherds hideout was delightful.”

“Wait, you were _watching_ that?” Beau looked toward the ground again, but the scene of everyone in the jungle had been replaced with just grass and flowers once more. “Like, are you watching us all the time? Even during—“

“Oh gods no!” Molly said, looking affronted while still grinning. “Like I’d want to see _that._ And it’s not like I don’t have things to do myself. I just look in every so often, see what trouble you’re getting into without me. Did Jester tell you about defacing that statue of the Platinum Dragon in Zadash? Man, I could have made that so much worse!”

Beau started to smile as Molly laughed because she could picture it, Jester and Molly running through the temple, laughing, with paint on their hands, and then the guilt hit her like a slap in the face. “Molly, I’m sorry.“

Molly raised an eyebrow. “For?”

“For being kind of an asshole to you when you were alive? For getting you killed? I don’t know, pick one.”

Molly sighed. “Should have guessed you wanted to talk about that. Okay. But this is a ’sitting around the campfire’ sort of conversation.” He waved his hand and the landscape changed, day sliding into night, a campfire blooming from the ground like a flower.

“How are you doing that? Did you get more magical after you died? Is this some weird ghost power or something?”

“I may have picked up a few tricks,” Molly said. “This is an in between sort of place, and pretty malleable if you have a decent imagination. I can teach you a few things, introduce you to a few people, if you end up sticking around.”

“If I die, you mean?” Beau sat down by the campfire and pulled Molly’s coat even tighter around herself. “How long until—“

Molly sat down next to her, his eyes shining in the firelight. “I think it’ll be pretty soon, one way or the other. We’re either going to have a very short time together or the whole of eternity. So I guess we should get the awkward stuff out of the way first.” He turned to face her. “Yeah I died. I didn’t want to die, but it happened, and I don’t blame any of you for it. I was living on borrowed time and I took my chances. If anything, sometimes I feel bad that my death was harder on you than it was on me. Things are simpler here. I don’t have to worry about my own death because, well, it’s done. I can’t stop you from mourning for me, but don’t beat yourself up if you can help it. And try not to let the others beat themselves up about it either, if you make it back. Especially Yasha. She’s been having a rough go of it.”

“You’ve been watching her too?”

“Of course I have, she’s my best friend. Even now. Death doesn’t change some things. And Beau? You know we’re friends too, right? You and me? The reason you’re here right now is because I saw you having a terrible time of it down on the Material Plane, and you were close enough to death that you could be brought here to wait instead of trapped in your own head, in your slowly dying body. I pleaded for the rules to be bent, because I knew you, because we were friends.”

“But—I was such an asshole.”

“Like I wasn’t?” Molly laughed ruefully. “Yasha could have told you that if I had hated you, really hated you, I wouldn’t have wasted any energy on you at all. Instead I gave as good as I got.”

“I don’t know about _good_ ,” Beau said with a smirk, falling back into routine with ease. There was some comfort to be found in routine. “Pretty sure I got the better of you in the end.”

“Really? Because my death allowed you all to get away. I think that means I win forever.”

Molly’s words should have stung, but they didn’t, probably because he delivered them with a smile that couldn’t help but be genuine. Beau found herself laughing, because it was funny and awful and true all at once.

“See? You know I’m right!”

“Just because you’re—“ Beau started to say, then abruptly lost the thought as the world around started to fade around the edges, as her body felt strangely heavy. “Molly?” Beau managed to gasp out, words suddenly hard. “Something’s happening. I don’t—“

Beau didn’t remember closing her eyes, but suddenly she couldn’t see. Instead she felt Molly holding her hands, his forehead against hers.

“I’m here Beau. Whatever’s happening, I’m here. Just remember that, okay?”

Beau tried to respond, but she was so tired all of a sudden. Was she dying? Was that what it felt like? Scared, she squeezed his hands, but they felt different, she couldn’t feel the scars on them at all….

**********

“Beau?”

“Is she waking up for real this time?”

“Beau?”

Beau forced her heavy eyes to open. Everyone was staring back at her with tired, desperately hopeful expressions, all except for Caduceus, whose eyes glowed an even brighter pink for a moment before dimming. Whatever he had seen must have pleased him, for his somber expression melted into a smile. “Welcome back.”

“I didn’t go anywhere,” Beau said, her voice coming out in a croaky whisper.

“You very nearly did, I think,” Caleb said softly as Frumpkin rubbed against her cheek.

“Don’t do that again,” Nott said. “That was scarier than the snake guys with the snake arms.”

“Nothing is scarier than the damn snake guys with the snake arms,” Beau said.

“I’m pretty sure you being all delirious and talking like Traci ranks right up there,” Fjord said. “That was damn near terrifying.”

“I did what?” Beau realized that Fjord was holding one of her hands, and that Jester’s tail was wrapped around her wrist.

“You listened to me!” Jester was saying proudly, even as she wiped at eyes that were obviously red from weeping. “I told you dying was forbidden. That goes for everyone, okay?”

Beau managed to turn her head and realized that Yasha was holding her other hand. The woman’s head was bowed, long hair hiding her face, but Beau could feel the tears falling on her skin.

“Yasha? Are you—“ And then Beau was being swept into a hug that was so hard it almost hurt.

“I thought I was going to lose you too,” Yasha whispered.

From over Yasha’s shoulder, just for a moment in between blinks, she thought she saw Molly standing there, his smile bittersweet. Then he was gone, and there was only the early morning sun shining through the shield of Caleb’s magic.

“I’m still here,” Beau whispered back. “I’m still here.” Later, when she was feeling stronger, when they could have some privacy, she wanted to tell Yasha about the dream or vision or whatever she had had of Molly. She might end up telling everyone else about it too, but she wanted to tell Yasha first. That was for later though, when she had gotten more sleep. Hells, for when everyone had gotten more sleep.

Eventually, Yasha let her go and Beau managed to stay sitting up, which felt like a major achievement considering she felt like she had been wrung out like a damp towel and then run over by a cart.

“Time for more tea, Beau.” Caduceus said firmly. “And then we all need some sleep.”

“I should tell Captain Avantica that we need another day here,” Fjord said, and made to get up.

“I’ll do it!” Jester had already sprung to her feet and rushed out of the bubble.

“I should refresh the spell,” Caleb said as he drew one of the spell books from his hostler.

Beau accepted the cup of tea from Caduceus and drank it down in two long swallows, wincing at the bitter taste of it.

“I’m glad that I didn’t have to find out what flowers would grow from you,” Caduceus said as he took the teacup back from her.

“Yeah, me too,” Beau said as she lay back down. Yasha laid down next to her, their fingers almost touching, and when Beau bridged that distance and put her hand over Yasha’s, the woman didn’t flinch away.

“You’re all going to be here when I wake up, right?” Beau asked. She was asleep before anyone had time to answer her, but that was all right. She wasn’t afraid that they were going to leave her. Not anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm angel-ascending on Tumblr if y'all want to stop by and say hi!


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